Older brother, restless soul, lie down Lie for a while with your ear against the earth And you’ll hear your sister sleep talking Say, “Your hair is long but not long enough to reach Home to me But your beard Someday might be”
And she woke up in a cold sweat on the floor Next to a family portrait drawn when you were four And beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more She’ll lay it aside
Older father, weary soul, you’ll drive Back to the home you made on the mountainside With that ugly, terrible thing Those papers for divorce And a lonely ring A lonely ring Sit on your porch And pluck your strings
Oh, and you’ll find somebody you can blame And you’ll follow the creek that runs out into the sea And you’ll find the peace of the Lord.
Grandfather, weary* soul, you’ll fly Over your life once more before you die Since our grandma passed away You’ve waited for forever and a day Just to die And someday soon You will die
It was the only woman you ever loved That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood And there’s nothing you can do about it now